Aurora Toshiko King (She/Her)

One Earth Collective Board Member

Executive Director, Free Spirit Media

Aurora Toshiko King is an arts & culture worker, facilitator and Californian currently residing in Chicago where she serves as Executive Director at Free Spirit Media (FSM). Prior to FSM, Aurora was Director of Education at Marwen, where she worked to support an organization-wide transformation of practices, policies, and vision to center the leadership and sustainability of intergenerational community-based artists. Aurora spent several years at Destiny Arts Center in Oakland, CA as Director of Programs and worked to co-create responsive social-justice-rooted creative youth development programs. Her work derives from her life as an ongoing learner, as well as from her experience as a teaching artist, creative administrator, artist, mother, and her own personal struggles navigating education systems. Aurora envisions a world where young people have everything they need to step into their power and brilliance, artists are thriving, and everyone has access to holistic creative spaces that build our interdependent liberation.

DORIE ELLZEY BLESOFF (She/Her)

One Earth Collective Board Member

Adjunct Faculty at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy, member of Euclid Ave United Methodist Church Reparations Working Group, singer/songwriter, and artist.

Dorie has been active in the work of sustainability and environmental justice for many years. The first newsletter article she wrote as a young adult activist in the 1970’s emphasized that any movement against “pollution” needed to include those who did not have access to healthy water, food, and green space. She is one of the founding members of Green Community Connections in Oak Park, a predecessor organization to One Earth Collective, and has facilitated at One Earth Film Festivals for multiple years. She serves on the Reparations Working Group at Euclid Ave. United Methodist, which was one of the first congregations to install a geothermal system. She and her family installed a geothermal system and did a green rehab for their Oak Park home, and a complete replacement of the front lawn with native plants. Her former block won Oak Park’s first Green Block award in 2002, and in 2024, her family's household won a Green Award. She is a singer/songwriter who contributes to community and family gatherings, with an album, “Handin’ Down the Love,” on Spotify and Apple Music, with a new album due in early 2026.

JIM BABCOCK (He/Him)
One Earth Film Fest Founding Member
One Earth Collective Board Member
Film Review and Fundraising

[email protected]
Jim is learning about the many advantages of community solar and, with the Oak Park and River Forest PlanItGreen Team, is working to bring clean, renewable energy for 100% of the communities’ electricity. With the Environmental team at his church, First United Church of Oak Park, he collaborates with many other local congregations to carry out sustainable practices for energy conservation, waste reduction, flood control, pesticide-free native gardens, and healthy food for all. Jim is an active advocate at the state and village levels of government for legislation and policies that will restore and protect the Earth's natural systems, especially the climate system.

JODI WINE (She/Her)
One Earth Collective Board Member
Senior Counsel, Rachlis Duff & Peel
Partnerships and Venues Support Team, Fundraising

[email protected]
Jodi is a strong believer that only by building public will to protect our planet will we create the political will necessary to implement effective environmental policy.  As Gregory Mankiw said so eloquently in the film Before The Flood, "Politicians, [even if] we call them elected leaders, are really elected followers. They do what the people want them to do. Once the people are convinced, the politicians will fall in line.”

YLANDA WILHITE (She/Her)

One Earth Collective Board Member

Field Museum Scientific Affiliate; Chicago Environmental Educators Co-founder

Ylanda, is a co-founder of Chicago Environmental Educators and a Scientific Affiliate at the Field Museum in the Geology and Botany Department. She is also an avid organic gardener with a focus on food sustainability and native plants to the Midwest region. When she is not gardening, she is kayaking, volunteering, and promoting community activism for restorative and environmental justice.